Bruins add a kick to pregame routine
While he's far from curmudgeonly, Johnny "Pie" McKenzie just doesn't understand kids these days.
It seems the 70-year-old former Bruins great finds the pregame habits of today's hockey players a little curious. In his day, McKenzie and teammates did little more than sit and have a cup of coffee to get warmed up for games.
In recent years, though, NHL players have taken a more active interest in preparing for the nightly grind. On most game days, there's a 45-minute morning skate. Then, players head home (or to the hotel) for a bite to eat and a nap, then back to the rink.
While fans stream through the gates, players throw tennis balls at each other, ride stationary bikes, perform complicated shuffle drills, and jump around in the hallways.
McKenzie understands that; he says he used to run up and down a few stairs toward the end of his career. "That's because I was old," he said with a chuckle. "Had to keep the legs in shape."
It's the soccer craze McKenzie doesn't get.
The NHL's obsession with the World's Game has reached a fever pitch. From Calgary to Carolina, nearly every team has a regular crew that plays soccer to get the juices flowing. At practices, during down time on the road, and before every game, someone always breaks out the ball. And the competition is heated.
"How much energy is spent in these crazy games, I don't know. It's got to take something out of you, I know that," said McKenzie, recently named hockey development liaison at UMass-Lowell. "We saved our energy for the ice. You don't see Pelé skating for a couple hours before he played soccer, right?"
Fair enough. But forward Milan Lucic would politely disagree.
"I like it as a warm-up, it helps me," said Lucic, one of several Bruins who are regulars on the concrete pitch. "It gets the legs going, it gets the competitiveness going a little bit."
Teammate Marc Savard agreed. "It's competitive. You want to stay in there, so it gets you in the action a bit, and it gets you focused and stuff like that," said Savard, after a recent practice in Wilmington. "We've always had fun doing it. When we get to the rink we look forward to playing."
Lucic, Savard, Mark Stuart, Jeremy Reich, Phil Kessel, and David Krejci have all made it a pregame ritual. On any given game night, they stand in a circle and boot it back and forth for a good 15-20 minutes. Glen Metropolit, P.J. Axelsson, Marco Sturm, and others occasionally join in.
Like many teams around the league, the Bruins play an elimination game called "two-touch." The rules are self-explanatory: touch the ball once before passing. First to drop the ball, or break the rules, is out.
So who is the best soccer player on the team? Who's the worst? Depends on whom you ask.
"I've been ranked No. 1 for a couple of years," Savard said.
But Kessel quickly disagreed. "Savvy's the worst soccer player in the league," he said, and quickly took the opportunity to knock Krejci.
"Krech has no effort," said Kessel, nodding to his teammate. "He doesn't try."
"I do!" Krejci shot back, pointing to Kessel. "This is the worst guy, eh? That guy, and Savard, are the biggest cheaters in the game."
But Savard, the ringleader of many a locker room gag, offered the definitive word on teammates.
"Lucic, he struggles with the ball," he said. "He's probably the worst, and Kessel's right there with him. They're the first two out usually. Krech is a skilled guy, but he tries to hang on to the ball too long and hurts himself."
Such ribbing has long been a part of the locker room. The old Garden, recalls former Bruin Bob Sweeney, had a Ping-Pong table. It was the site of some lengthy battles.
"The juices were always flowing. No matter what it is, when you're an athlete, you want to win," said Sweeney, director of development for the Boston Bruins Foundation. He recalled defeats at the hands of Cam Neely, who he said would dominate with the paddle the way he did on the ice.
And a little healthy competition never hurt, right? Well, not always. Sometimes, big bodies in small spaces can lead to injuries.
Last year, then-Nashville forward Scott Hartnell (ankle) and Buffalo's Maxim Afinogenov (concussion) were among the cement soccer casualties. This year, Erik Cole was the latest victim -- he broke his ankle in October, the victim of a cinder block-induced sprain. However, despite Cole missing four games because of the injury, coach Peter Laviolette gave blessings to the Canes' soccer sessions, saying they were good for morale.
Hurricanes trainer and strength coach Pete Friesen echoed Laviolette, and listed a host of benefits to the games, among them the increased coordination, muscle activity, and focus a dynamic warm-up provides.
"We still do it because it's such a great exercise," Friesen said. "Also, it gets them in the mood to play the game. Our guys play a game that challenges each other. Don't underestimate how important it is to get the guys talking to each other, too. It's all good, on multiple levels."
And the degree of intensity varies from team to team. At a visit to a pregame session in November, the taunts and ooooh's of the Bruins players reverberated throughout the halls of Floor 3 at the Garden, as they ragged on each other for breaking the rules or being lazy.
But that's a tea party compared with what they do in Dallas.
"I've seen guys dive into walls, I've seen bodies collide. I've seen heated, heated, arguments that would put Mr. [John] McEnroe to shame, over whether it hit the ground or not, or whether someone's holding onto the ball too long," said Stars director of communications Rob Scichili, recalling the notoriously petulant tennis legend.
So much for coffee and conversation. But, all in the name of good fun, and a little healthy competition. As long as no one gets hurt, everything's fine.
It has McKenzie thinking that a soccer game or two might have helped him extend his career.
"The best year I ever had, Harry Sinden had a karate guy come in and stretch Gerry Cheevers and myself after practice," he said. "I scored 30 that year." 